Together Everyone Achieves More
Power Standards & Common
Assessments
at McGavock Elementary
Stacey Elkins, Literacy Coach
Basic Facts

Consider These Facts:
5.6 instructional hours per day x 180 days x 13
years = 13,104 total hours of K-12 instruction.
 McREL identified 200 standards and 3,093
benchmarks in national and state level
documents.
 Classroom teachers estimated a need for 15,465
hours to teach them all.

What is a Power Standard?
Prioritized standards
 Essential for student success

In each grade level
 In life
 On all high-stakes assessments

How Powerful Practices
Work Together
Power
Standards
Data-Drive
Decision
Making
“Unwrap” Standards,
Big Ideas, Essential
Questions
Effective
Teaching
Strategies
Common
Formative
Assessments
Performance
Assessments
Rubrics
By: Robert Smelser
Priority Standards Steps
Step 1: Make initial selections based on
professional judgment.
 Step 2: Analyze state test requirements and
school and district test data.
 Step 3: Modify selections as needed.
 Step 4: Vertically align standards PK-12.
 Step 5: Acquire feedback from all sites.
 Step 6: Revise, publish, distribute


By: Larry Ainsworth
How to Select Power
Standards
1.
2.
3.
Determine to start – reading or math
Count the number of standards
Decide on a reduction target
(from 60 to 30 or 20)
Criteria:
Endurance
Leverage
Readiness for Next Level
Take 10 minutes to determine
subject, count standards, and
decide reduction number
Preliminary Determination

By yourself quietly (not group work):
Select your favorite standards – number
determined by the number you just decided
 You will have 10 minutes to do this.

Preliminary Determination

As a group:
By dot-voting – determine which standards get
the highest number of individual votes.
 Take 15 minutes to do this.


Type or write them on a separate piece of paper
so that only your top votes are seen.
 This
is still preliminary!
Discussion
As a group, advocate to add or delete some.
**If you add one, then remove another!
 Try to stay in your target number area!

4 nine-weeks
Divide the Power Standards into the nineweeks.
 Estimate the amount of time devoted to each.
 Make adjustments to standards – add and
delete if necessary
 ***Allow for time in the 9-weeks for
assessments!

Chart Paper
Put Power Standards on Chart Paper by nineweeks.
 Are they aligned across the grade levels?
 Do they match the TCAP standards?


Now, start back at the beginning with the
other subject!
COMMON ASSESSMENTS
Power of COMMON
Assessments
“Schools with the greatest improvements in
student achievement consistently used
common assessments.”

– Douglas Reeves
Formative vs. Summative
Assessments

Formative:
Immediate feedback
 Current level of student understanding
 Administered several times


Summative:

Final measure to determine if learning goals are
met
Common Assessments
They are formative & summative
 Important point

Developed COLLABORATIVELY
 Incorporate each team’s collective wisdom

What are Common
Formative Assessments?
Items designed to match the level of rigor
indicated in the targeted Priority Standards.
 A blend of item types, including selectedresponse (multiple choice, true/false,
matching) AND constructed-response (shortor extended)
 Student results analyzed in grade-level or
course-specific Data Teams to guide
instructional planning and delivery


Ainsworth & Viegut
10 STEPS TO CREATING A
QUALITY COMMON
FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT!
Laying the Foundation:
Steps 1-6
Step
 Step
 Step
 Step
 Step
 Step

1:
2:
3:
4:
5:
6:
Select Important Instructional Topic
Identify Matching Priority Standards
“Unwrap” Selected Priority Standards
Create Graphic Organizer
Determine the Big Ideas
Write the Essential Questions
Creating the Assessment:
Steps 7-10
Step 7: Write Selected-Response Items
 Step 8: Write Constructed-Response Items
(extended or short)
 Step 9: Create Scoring Guide for ConstructedResponse Items
 Step 10: Write Essential Questions – Big Idea
Directions

Step 1: Pick One Topic

Pick one topic from 1st nine-weeks
One reading
 One math

Ainsworth suggests important topic for about a
month of instruction.
 For example: Reading Comprehension (Main Idea,
Supporting Details, Inferences, and
Generalizations)

Step 2: Identify Matching
Priority Standards

Find the standards that go with that topic
Example:
 5.2.3 Recognize main ideas presented in texts
and provide evidence that supports those ideas.
 5.2.4 Draw inferences, conclusions, or
generalizations about text and support them with
textual evidence and prior knowledge.
 5.2.5 Contrast facts, supported inferences, and
opinions in text.

Step 3: “Unwrap” Priority
Standards
Underline key concepts (important nouns and
noun phrases)
 Circle the skills (the verbs) in each one

Example:
 5.2.3 RECOGNIZE main ideas presented in texts
and PROVIDE evidence that supports those ideas.

Step 4: Create a Graphic
Organizer


“Unwrapped” Concepts From Targeted Power
(Priority) Standards
•Main ideas
•Facts
•Supporting evidence
•Supported inferences
•Inferences
•Opinions
•Generalizations
Text evidence
Prior knowledge
•Conclusions
THIS IS WHAT STUDENTS NEED TO KNOW!
Step 4: Create a Graphic
Organizer

“Unwrapped” Skills with Approximate Bloom’s
Taxonomy Levels
(2) RECOGNIZE (main idea)
(2) PROVIDE (supporting evidence)
(4) CONTRAST (facts, supported inferences, opinions)
(4) DRAW (inferences, conclusions, generalizations)
(5) SUPPORT (inferences/conclusions w/text evidence, prior knowledge)

WHAT STUDENTS NEED TO BE ABLE TO DO
Step 5: Determine Topical
Big Ideas
Main ideas must be supported with evidence
from text and supporting details.
 We draw conclusions and make
generalizations from what we read and from
our own experiences.
 Knowing the differences between facts,
opinions, and inferences helps you make your
own decisions about what you read.

Step 6: Write Essential
Questions

1.
Must correspond with Big Ideas
How do you know if your main idea is really
the main idea? (Main ideas must be
supported with evidence from text and
supporting details.)
2.
What are conclusions and generalizations?
How do we arrive at them? (We draw
conclusions and make generalizations from
what we read and from our own
experiences.)
Step 6: continued
3.
Facts, opinions, inferences! What’s the
difference, and why should we know?
(Knowing the differences between facts,
opinions, and inferences helps you make
your own decisions about what you read.)
Step 7: Selected-Response
Multiple-Choice
 Question is directly correlated to “unwrapped”
concept, skill, and level of Bloom’s Taxonomy


(Level 2) RECOGNIZE (main idea)
Student Directions: Choose the best answer from the answer choices.
1. What is the main idea of this tale? (level 2)
a) Two frogs accidentally jumped into a pail of milk.
b) The little frog lived because he didn’t give up.
c) Milk can be churned into butter with enough effort.
Step 7: Selected-Response
True/False
 Question is directly correlated to “unwrapped”
concept, skill, and level of Bloom’s Taxonomy.


(Level 4) DRAW (inferences, conclusions,
generalizations)
Student Directions: Write T or F in the space provided. (Level 4)
______ The little frog knew the milk would turn into butter if he kept
paddling.
______ The little frog hoped that if he kept paddling, he would live.
Step 8: Extended-Response

Question is directly correlated to “unwrapped”
concepts, skills, and levels of Bloom’s
Taxonomy.


(Level 4) – DRAW (inferences, conclusions, generalizations)
(Level 5) – SUPPORT (inferences, conclusions with text evidence,
prior knowledge)
This tale best illustrates which one of the following generalizations:
(Level 4)
a) Danger can show up in the most ordinary places.
b) Events sometimes take a surprising turn if you refuse to quit.
c) Everyone fails some of the time.
Step 8: Extended-Response
Item
Student Directions:
Write one or more paragraphs defending your
answer choice for the multiple-choice question
above. State your choice and three reasons to
support it, using examples from the tale, “A Bucket
of Trouble.” Write a concluding sentence to
summarize or support your choice. Your writing
will be scored using the criteria listed on the
Constructed-Response Scoring Guide. (Level 5)
Step 9: Create Scoring
Guide

Proficient
States answer choice
 Supports answer choice with three examples from
tale
 Writes one or more paragraphs
 Writes concluding sentence that summarizes or
supports answer choice


**Then create the remaining levels of the scoring
guide: Advanced, Progressing, and Beginning
Strive for Objective
Language

Language that is specific

(Avoid words like “some, few, good, many, most,
little, creative,” etc.)
Language
 Language
 Language
 Language

that
that
that
that
is
is
is
is
measurable
observable
understandable
matched to task directions
Step 10: Evaluate Student
Understanding of Big Ideas
Students will respond to the teacher’s
Essential Questions with the Big Ideas stated
in their own words.
 Responses can be quickly evaluated using the
provided generic scoring guide (in your
supporting documents).

Step 10: Evaluate Student
Understanding of Big Ideas
Conversation:
What are our roadblocks?
What do you see as easy to implement?
What will we need more PD on?